China lets Taipei join probe on deported Taiwanese

TAIPEI — China has agreed to let Taiwan join the investigation of fraud cases involving 45 Taiwanese suspects who were deported from Kenya and are currently detained in Beijing, said a Taiwanese official yesterday.

Ms Chen Wen-chi, director of the Ministry of Justice’s Department of International and Cross-Strait Legal Affairs, told reporters that both sides reached a preliminary consensus on the matter during her two-day visit to Beijing.

She said China “responded positively” to her requests, including agreeing to allow family members of the suspects to meet “in accordance with related regulations”.

Taiwan had protested the deportation of its citizens to China, and many see in Beijing’s move an attempt to bully the island’s claims as its own territory. Beijing says it has jurisdiction in the case because it says the victims were all Chinese, and has complained that Taiwan has not sufficiently punished suspects in previous such cases.

Earlier, a Chinese police official said the 45 suspects have confessed to their crimes and will be put on trial together with 32 Chinese citizens deported along with them. The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Mr Chen Shiqu, a deputy inspector with the Public Security Ministry’s criminal inspection bureau, as saying: “The suspects specifically targeted people on the Chinese mainland and their victims are from the mainland. Not to mention that many of the suspects are themselves from the mainland.

“They will thus be investigated, prosecuted and tried in accordance with mainland law,” he was quoted as saying, adding that all 45 Taiwanese “admitted their guilt”.

Kenya deported the men this month after some were acquitted of fraud charges in the African nation, a decision the Taiwanese government denounced as “an illegal abduction.” Kenya maintains diplomatic relations with China and has no formal ties with Taiwan.

China’s Public Security Ministry says an estimated 10 billion yuan (S$2.1 billion) is lost each year to scammers posing as officials from the police, government, banks or insurance companies to convince their victims to transfer funds or provide personal information that can be used to steal from them.

This episode may pose a diplomatic test for incoming Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who takes office on May 20. She has frustrated Beijing by remaining ambiguous on the so-called 1992 consensus negotiating framework that underpinned expanded ties under outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou.

Under it, both sides agree they are part of one China, even if they disagree on what that means.

The case has also highlighted China’s growing influence in Africa, and in particular Kenya, where China controlled about 57 per cent of the public debt as of June, according to a World Bank report released last month.

Following the Kenya deportations, Taiwan convinced Malaysia to send another group of suspected scammers to Taiwan, rather than the mainland, but then released them on arrival for lack of evidence — sparking anger from China.

But on Thursday, 18 of the 20 were taken into custody after prosecutors reviewed evidence forwarded by Chinese investigators and argued there was strong evidence of culpability. The two not taken into custody were ordered to stay in Taiwan. AGENCIES